Our first full studio album came out three days before Christmas. I had recently turned sixteen.

We got into the flow of promotions, radio shows, interviews, and our first concert. A month later, it was 2007 and there were no breaks. We went right into working on new material and another concert tour. We slept in a tour bus and hotel rooms as we traveled across Incheon, Daugu, Changwon, Jeonju, and Busan. It was exhausting, but at the same time, I lived for it. I was alive on stage.

I felt different. I looked different. With the new song material came a new concept, so a stylist noona cut my hair. I couldn't hide my face anymore.

Jiyong said he really liked the change. Maknae is cute. He watched the hair stylist with hawk eyes as I sat in a salon makeup chair and had the length trimmed off.

Once the task at hand was said and done, Jiyong bowed and thanked the stylist and proceeded to ruffle up the top of my hair. He grinned lazily and slowly tangled his fingers into the hairs at the back of my neck.

I shuddered, utterly uncomfortable.

"Hyung. Stop."

I got up from the makeup chair, forcing his hands off me. I took one last glimpse at my refelction in the mirror in front of me and did my best to look at Jiyong dead-in-the-eye and crossed my arms.

"Hyung. You can't do stuff like that."

"Maknae~ You know I'm just playing around. Its not like there's any cameras here to embarrass you."

Cameras or not, I still didn't like it. I knew better than to talk back, so I walked out of the stylist's studio salon in silence and quickly climbed into the manager's car parked right outside. Jiyong quickly followed behind and occupied the front passenger seat while I sulked in the back. Not a word was said on the way to the YG studio to meet up with the other members.

I knew I was being difficult, but I absolutely refused to be the toy, the pet. If I didn't stand up for myself, surely the fans and outsiders would start thinking Jiyong and I were lovers. He was just so clingy. I had to set the record straight in any way that I could.

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Our first mini album came out in August, a few days before Jiyong's nineteenth birthday. I'd never really seen him so stressed before. Our title track was Lies, and there was this sad look in his eyes when we talked about how he wrote the melody and the lyrics. Before the album came out, we started the tiresome production of making a music video for Lies. Jiyong would carefully tug at the topknot of brown, mousy hair on his head and sigh in between takes of waving his arms around at the camera.

For the jail scene, we had to dance around a set behind bars at an old school gymnasium. It was late, and shooting had to take a break for an hour to style Jiyong's long front bangs into tiny dreadlocks. When filming picked up again, the gymnasium was even darker. There was an odd chill that scared all of us, really. It was diffucult to concentrate. We wanted to return home and finish up the shooting tomorrow, but tomorrow was a whole new schedule. There wouldn't be time.

The staff finally called the shoot a wrap at a little past three in the morning. After we all clapped and bowed, I felt a hand slip against my wrist. Jiyong stood next to me. I flinched. He didn't let go.

"Its scary in here, isn't it maknae? Aren't you scared too?"

I sighed. I just wanted to get out of here, so I let him keep his hand entwined with mine for once because this time, he was right.

A/N edit: Seungri's day in the Great concert :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE5wl_8mOaI

Making of Lies MV, just because :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAxcLriSYmc